African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."

***

Barack Obama, or at least his campaign photographer, maintains a Flickr account. Yet another reason Obama is the young people's choice. I'm not sure McCain has even heard of Flickr.

The latest set of pics is from Election Night. Here he is, watching TV on Election Night. Here he is, doing his famous point. If you were the recipient of said point, it must feel like receiving one from Michael Jordan after a nice play.

Ah, to be so telegenic. Also, how does one get to be Obama's campaign photographer? That's a guaranteed path to a coffee table book in 8 or 9 years.

***

A mostly unrelated sidenote: this morning, our kitchen sink clogged up and then spewed up what seemed to be sludge. It smells terrible. I blame Joe the Plumber for neglecting his duties, and I pray my apartment will fix this problem soon so I can use my kitchen again.

Someday we'll look back and laugh that a candidate for the highest office in our land brought Joe the Plumber out on the campaign trail in crucial days of the Election as, well, a prop.

***

Yes, I'm still not Election'd out quite yet, and neither are my sisters and all the volunteers I worked with this campaign season, all of whom have been trading e-mails with me non stop since Tuesday morning. Perhaps we won't stop thinking or discussing politics as long as Obama is in office. Is that such a bad thing? The West Wing is no longer on TV, but maybe we'll bear witness to the real-life version. A citizenship invested in politics for more than one out of every four years? That would be a blessing.

A way to relive the campaign is through this much discussed 7 part series from Newsweek. They were given extensive access in exchange for an embargo until after the Election was decided. Read it now, before it's turned into an HBO miniseries.

***

Obama iPhone wallpapers. My wallpaper for most of the time I've had my iPhone was a photo from an Obama event at Gibson Ampitheatre here in LA last December. Then, for roughly the past month, my iPhone wallpaper was a photo I took with actress Kelly Hu while canvassing for Obama in Las Vegas (if you have to ask, you probably don't know what she looks like, and besides, she was out with us canvassing and rallying, so she's ace in my book).

I thought I'd be ready for a non-Obama-themed wallpaper now that he'd won the Election, but no, I'm going to choose one of these from Flickr for my phone for just a while longer.

***

DailyKos breaks down exit poll data to assess the Election vote by age and race. The younger the voter, the more the skew towards Obama, but he won the 18-29, 30-44, and 45-64 age groups. Only the 65+ demo went McCain.

As for race, McCan won the white vote, the largest bloc by far at 74% of the voting pool, by 55% to 43%. But Obama won the African-American, Latino, Asian, and Other categories, all by more than 60%, and that carried it for him.

As for turnout, the estimate is that 64% of the voting-age population voted on Tuesday. That would be the highest turnout since women got the right to vote in 1920.

***

Jumping back to Tuesday's Indecision 2008 special, I noted yesterday that I found out that Obama had become President Elect, officially, at the end of that special. I sent it to Joannie, and she was moved that Colbert started to cry. When I wrote, as the title of my post, "When Colbert Wept", I meant it facetiously, as I thought he was pretending to be choked up in character (it's also a reference to a book titled When Nietzsche Wept which I read a long time ago).

But on yesterday's Daily Show, Chris Wallace makes reference to Colbert and Stewart crying when they found out Obama had won...

And so I went back and watched that moment when they announced Obama as the President, and it does seem like Colbert is fighting back some emotion (they say women are better readers of emotion, and Joannie has a higher Emotional IQ than I do). Even if Colbert isn't overwhelmed by the moment, I'd just like to think he is, because who didn't tear up a bit when Obama walked out onto that stage with his family? Maybe Obama is the only person cool enough to take it in stride, but I was bobbing at sea in tidal waves of emotion.

What do you think? Did Colbert drop out of character for just a beat?

Hulu, hulu, humor, jonstewart, photography, politics, stephencolbert, theonion, tv